Skin is the largest organ of the human body. There are many types of skin diseases. Skin diseases may be acute (lasting only a few minutes to several hours) or chronic conditions, which may affect individuals for days, months, years and even the entire life. Skin diseases may be conditions caused by fungal, bacterial, or viral sources, or may be non-infectious, immune responses, such as inflammatory reactions with or without allergens, or idiopathic. Therefore, the symptoms of the skin diseases may vary and range from mild itching, redness and swelling to severe pus and nociceptive pain, for examples damaging ulceration. Skin diseases may impose significant impact on the quality of an individual's life.
Skin diseases may be ulosis, dermatitis, proliferative diseases or conditions, mast cell diseases or conditions, burns, contact with allergens and/or irritants, or inflammatory diseases or conditions, skin diseases including atopic dermatitis, bullous dermatosis, collagenous diseases, psoriasis, psoriatic lesions, contact dermatitis, eczema, urticaria, rosacea, hypertrophic scarring, keloid formation, scleroderma, folliculitis, burns or mucin histiocytosis.
Atopic dermatitis, also known as atopic eczema, is a recurrent allergic skin disease, often associated with genetic disorders, is one of the most common skin diseases in infants and toddlers, accounting for about 3 to 5% of the pediatric population, 60% of these patients develop disease within one year of age, while 30% of patients develop disease between the ages of 1 and 5 years. About half of children suffering from atopic dermatitis also develop allergic rhinitis, asthma, allergic conjunctivitis, etc., also known as allergic children, or known as atopic predisposition.
Psoriasis is a common chronic skin disease, also known as white crust. It is characterized by the appearance of papules, erythema, the surface covered with silver-white scales, clear boundaries, often recurring in scalp, extensor limbs and back.
Folliculitis is suppurative inflammation caused by fungal invasion of follicular parts, which often occurs in heads, necks, buttocks, genitals, perianal areas or other parts of the body, and prone to relapse.
Contact dermatitis is an inflammatory reaction caused by exposure of skin mucosa to external substances, such as chemical fiber clothing, cosmetics, drugs, etc. Its clinical features are sharp-edge-damages to contacted areas, patients with mild conditions suffer from edematous erythema, papules, patients with severe conditions suffer from Molluscum contagiosum (water warts) or even big scars, patients with more serious conditions suffer from epidermolysis, or even necrosis.
The usual ways of treating skin diseases include oral or external formulations. Steroid and antihistamine drugs are now widely used to treat allergic diseases of atopic dermatitis, in severe cases, immunosuppressive agents may be given. However, these methods only show short-term therapeutic effects and are prone to adverse side effects such as skin atrophy, skin depigmentation, acne, osteoporosis, avascular necrosis, arteriosclerosis, glaucoma, enhanced tumor growth, etc. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a novel therapeutic agent which may be used for symptom relief and treatment of atopic dermatitis, and provide powerful and long-lasting therapeutic effects with reduced side effects.
Mangosteen has been used in the field of breast cancer prevention and muscle-related diseases, it has also been developed as nutritional supplements and cosmetics in daily lives, as well as uses in the treatment of acute hepatitis, liver fibrosis and cirrhosis prevention (ROC Patent No. 1411432).
Matsumoto et al. have studied α-mangostin, β-mangostin, γ-mangostin, and methyl-β-mangostin purified from mangosteen rinds and investigated the inhibitory effect of this compound at various stages of the cell cycle, showing that this compound has anti-cell proliferative effect and anti-tumor effect (Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2005, 13, 6064-6069).